Technologies, tools and approach

IT specialists of different fields work in our studio. So, we are able to provide a wide range of quality service. Below you can see a list of technologies and tools we use in our work. But we are not limited by this list. We prefer complex tasks and kindly explore new directions to solve customer's problem more effectively. Moreover, we develop our own tools if it is necessary.

Brand identity creation

We think that brand identity is something more than merely a logo, font set and a company’s collateral guidelines. Brand identity is the whole image – a set of visual and psychological associations that combine in consumers’ minds. We start with detailed research and analyze the feelings and emotions which the brand should evoke in customers. This is the fundamental information we use as a foundation in the process of a new brand creation. The result of our work is a set of all necessary elements and guidelines for their correct usage - a brand book with usage rules, brand promotion strategy for different channels, and the necessary technical recommendations.

We help our clients to communicate a brand identity to customers which exactly matches the desired concept needed to achieve the company’s goal. In the future we can also adapt the brand for newly-emerging needs – for example, to conduct a particular promotional campaign or design the interior of the company office to match the brand identity. In addition to developing a brand from scratch we can assist in evolving an existing brand. We can audit branding to improve elements to match a company’s changing strategy and developing market, provide assistance in rebranding projects or in developing additional products, design cobranding for new partnership, and help develop more effective promotion strategies for an existing brand.

3D visualization & animation

All of our experts are technically competent. They have experience and creative thinking skills. We are ready to create any 3D concepts according to our customers’ needs, and not just limited to standard solutions. We can invent and bring to life unique concept-art for games, live animation videos, and super-charged 3D effects.

We can craft complex 3D models to meet your demands, and animate them with motion behaviors that follow real-world physical laws to provide highly realistic sequences. This work is guided by a scientific approach requiring many exacting calculations to enable technical accuracy that results in realistic visualization. We provide clients with technical animation development that accomplishes the modeling of complex objects with one or multiple lighting sources and proper resultant tonal coloring and cast shadows, and other surface treatment effects.

For visual representation of different objects and demonstrations of your products, we can provide you with 3D images or video clips of any size and format your project may require.

We are ready to meet with you, discuss your project, and then take your wishes into account as we bring to life your ideas and create extraordinary, memorable media solutions!

2D & 3D animation for web

There are many different types of animation on the web – from interfaces and transition elements to fully interactive animated scenes.

Quality interface animation is subtle – an enduser intuitively understands it as a logical compliment of an online interface. By contrast, bad interface animation is noticeable, and it irritates everybody. So, the main focus while creating animated interfaces is to insure that it enhances an experience rather than detracts from enjoyment and usability. Sometimes, it would be better to leave out animation rather than to risk ruining user interfaces. When creating interface animations, we use only the fastest technologies in rendering, which can sometimes limit options.

When working with large, interactive scenes we use a completely different approach. Since the goal is typically to impress the users, our engineers and designers use all available technical solutions, and we closely monitor the results to create something both fast and impressive. We develop the plot of the scene, formulate the necessary motion, work out the details, and then combine it all within the final code.

One common characteristic of all animation is the intensity of challenge: converting a designer’s visual concept into working code is complex and at times, tedious. The designers and developers work closely together to generate sequences that have a good combination of speed, smoothness of motion, and provide the best experience.

We’ve discovered a non-obvious solution for this challenge – using the universal language of mathematics. Our designer’s actions are translated into mathematic language using special tools, and then the developer can implement the resultant mathematic functions in the final code. This solution requires some extensive training for our designers and developers, but it makes it possible to achieve results much more rapidly.

Also, we are not limited to producing animations from start to finish. If a client has a concept already developed some by another designer, our developers are experienced enough to make an animation based on that prior work.

Promo website

Developing special promo websites (sometimes also called “microsites”) is one of the most popular options in web marketing. And, it is not surprising. Very often, an event or special release necessitates the creation of a modern, light website. The goal of such a website is to be entertaining, memorable and highly informative. For our experts this sort of project provides a great opportunity to develop a site in accordance with the latest trends, applying the newest and most impressive technologies which we work to remain familiar with. Integration with social networks and elaboration of technical basis for the maximum productive effect of social exchange is very important for most promo sites. We don’t forget about that. And we know: We must thoroughly understand the information to qualitatively present it. That is why we begin our work on promo sites with a careful study of the theme and topic. And, naturally, the timeframe for developing such sites is usually critical. Fortunately, the scale of most promo sites is small, and so a new site can be developed very fast. We work hard and rapidly at all stages.

We categorize sites that are similar in format (such as business card sites, personal blogs etc.) to the as promo sites. Our approach to creating such sites is virtually the same, but we take into account the specific requirements dictated by the type.

Adaptive website

There are many devices in the world for accessing the internet. It is not only computers and notebooks any more. Different smartphones, tablets, and TV access devices are becoming more and more popular. Lately, the percent of mobile traffic has been greatly increasing. In order to address the multi-device trend, it is necessary to take into account multiple website display characteristics: different resolutions, different screen sizes. User-flow can become a significant problem in mobile interfaces – if the site is too inconvenient to use on mobile devices, a large percentage of the audience may be lost, and, consequently, profits may be lost.

Work on developing an adaptive website begins with thinking through the design and layout while taking into account the functionality of specific devices. Our designers place graphic user-interface (“GUI”) elements so that if the different component blocks minimize or move, the main visual concepts and essence of the site won’t be lost. The resulting site is still easy to use and visually attractive.

It is very important to implement an adaptive layout – to make the site dynamic and user-friendly. This can be done in a few different ways:

The so-called “rubber” layout – the main panels can be stretched or compressed depending on the width of the device screen;

Transfer sidebars – this is recommended for multicolumn websites for switching layouts when browsing from different devices to maximize legibility, but it’s also very labor-intensive;

Elementary scaling – this option may be sufficient for simple sites.

Naturally, these variations are not universal solutions. When developing adaptive sites for our clients, we focus on the best solution to address the users’ tasks for which each site resource was originally designed to fulfill. Our approach is individualized for every distinct situation.

Complete startup solutions

Everyone knows the phrase: “All good things must come to an end.” But let’s instead look at this from the opposite side:

“All good things must begin.”

Startup company projects that we work upon are just as important to us as they are for our startup clients.

For Eikoncraft, working on a startup company project is the chance to create a high-quality and unique product, raising our own company’s . The project we could be proud of. There are many difficulties at the beginning of any business. It’s natural and logical. We offer our clients the possibility to develop a startup from scratch – whole or individual parts - in any direction. We work with long-term projects (from 3 years and more) as well. Eikoncraft is ready not only to indifferent implementer function. You can be sure of the participation in lively discussion and our proposition for better implementation of your ideas. We’ll choose a team focused on your startup only. Our approach is the maximum interest. So, your project – is our project while we are cooperating.

Our services are not only the bulk of the work on startup (design, coding and many others). Besides, we can help you with secondary difficulties you may run into: legal consultation or patent search. We’ll solve the problem of your need for investment: from proper formalization of your idea for delivery to potential investors to promo site develop. We can help you with project starting and realization on Kickstarter.

If you are waiting for Monday, New Year, motivation, prosperous horoscope, the exact moment et cetera – THIS DAY has come.

Online stores

Our studio offers services for online shops. We can develop a shop from scratch or come on board at any stage of work. Our designers can develop a corporate identity, logo, and graphic layout for a shop according to its target audience and top-selling products. During the front end development stage, we help our client to come up with and implement commodity-dependent functionality: size and color filters; related product offers; sort-by-category; and more.

We are experienced with various top content management systems (“CMS”), including: Magento, Opencart, and Shopify. We can also rapidly understand and get up to speed on the operation of any other CMS, and we will configure it, launch it, train employees how to use it, and provide you with a user guide for the shop.

We use an external supplementary service to accurately execute of clients’ ecommerce requirements. We have in our arsenal well-proven systems such as Erply point-of-sale software, and hand-customized by us for different tasks, including: synchronization of several shops’ databases, integration of Amazon accounts and on-line shops, automatic inventory updates of product amounts, buyer accounts, etc.

Amazon account management

We take seriously the responsibility for creating new accounts on Amazon, and promoting existing ones. Our experts help to carefully examine the current state of the particular product on the market and analyze its cost prior to developing the Amazon account for you. We then develop a sales strategy and provide legal assistance. We can solve all of the problems which may arise. It is our business to understand and organize everything as well as to help both beginners and experienced users.

What we offer:

Your products will be easily findable in Amazon’s site.

Full compliance with Amazon’s requirements for the products cataloging data and following their best-practices recommendations for promotion;

Our own unique technical solutions for implementing of a large amount of machine operations (“Repricer”);

Helping you with Fulfilment by Amazon (“FBA” - Amazon’s delivery service, which is often a selling-point and priority for consumers);

Advice on any matters relating to the advertising campaign and promotion and services for product provision.

A developed proprietary knowledge base with step-by-step instructions for many Amazon account functions where you might want assistance -- we’ll be glad to share our experience and knowledge base with our clients!

SEO/SEM/SMO/SMM

Every website and web resource is provided for a specific purpose. As a general rule, a site is a business tool, so in addition to its design and development it is necessary to take complex promotional measures to attract visitors in order to convert them into subscribers, achieve sales, or attract them for other conversion activities.

For the introduction of completely new sites, offer to help you through first researching the online marketplace and we’ll perform competitive analysis in order to develop a business model – this research will be used to inform us as to how to the website will need to be designed and promoted. We help our clients to evolve a plan aimed towards achieving their business goals, and we help bring it to life at each step – from site development to increasing its conversions and profitability over time.

For already-existing sites we are always ready to perform an audit in order to detect search optimization weaknesses, and to evaluate traffic and conversion sources. As a result of the audit, we will make a plan to improve the site’s position in search results, and thereby attract more visitors and sales.

Generally, our optimization service may be divided into 2 categories:

Internal optimization: Insuring that the technical details of the website’s code is in accordance with the search engines’ recommendations, performing good content optimization, and installation of any necessary tools or other elements.

External optimization: obtaining listings for the site in online catalogues, setting up social profiles, getting links back to the site into various resources in the form of comments, recommendations, chats and so on.

During the process of working on the site, we constantly focus on the desired results, and aim all tools and activities towards one thing only – the achievement of your business goals. To optimize further, we offer to also set up and manage contextual advertising services (such as Pay-Per-Click ads – PPC).

Mobile applications

A quarter of the world’s population uses smartphones. The quantity of mobile applications is more than a million and a half – a giant number. It is a huge market, which has many aspects. You can see some of them below.

Different platforms – iOS, Android, Windows Phone: For a developer it means writing code in three programming languages. Or one can use cross-platform options, which are not so flexible in capabilities. We make a very deliberate decision about what technology should be used for every specific situation.

Different platforms have different UI standards. Android users are used to having a menu in top left corner. In the same location on iPhones, users can find a context-sensitive “back” button. Our designers know all of these points and will provide the ideal interface that’s most familiar to users.

Official app stores further deepen fragmentation. Every store places its requirements on applications and developers. We take into consideration all these nuances and provide full support of applications until the application is approved by the store and goes on sale. If desired, we also provide postproduction support, issue new versions, and so on.

Many applications need access to data from the cloud. In order to support both web and mobile applications simultaneously, we make the backend data source to be universal. This offers an advantage in terms of the speed of development and flexibility of functional options.

Standalone desktop application

The web has evolved organically and desktop applications have become largely sidelined. Nevertheless, standalone applications have some significant advantages in terms of speed, convenience and a wider range of functional options. We can focus on these advantages.

Our interface designers find user-friendly solutions, intuitive controls, hotkeys, and gestures. Mouse, keyboard, trackpad, touchscreen – we keep in mind all options for interactions with applications. Our developers focus on the final goal – users must get pleasure from using the interface.

Our developers know many operating system capabilities, so they can execute a functional application with a high level of quality. Thanks to the fact that we can work with the web as well, we are ready to create necessary network functionality to facilitate desktop applications: automatic updates, cloud storage, check licenses – are all elements that can make for an excellent software package.

We believe a considerable advantage is derived from our extensive mathematical background. Due to it we are able to work in frontier fields such as pattern recognition, neural networks, machine learning, search patterns, statistical algorithms and more.

Prototyping & industrial design

The prospect of producing any device raises many questions for business owners, especially in cases where it is one’s first experience in the production sphere. The process of creating any product ranging from simple ballpoint pens to high-tech gadgets such as modern smartphones includes many stages. Content development takes into account all the technical features involved in production: the creation of a model housing; the selection of the right materials; prototyping for testing; selecting the desired factory; preparation of all necessary digital files for production; quality control organization and many other things up to the design of the final packaging. All these stages are closely connected, so a mistake at any stage could result in the necessity to redo a major part of the project. That is why understanding of the production stages is vital for avoiding many potentially expensive problems.

We have sufficient experience in industrial design and knowledge of the necessary details.

We are ready to provide the product from initial sketches all the way up to manufacturing the parts and final packaging. We have the necessary technical background for prototyping (3D printers, laser cutters, industrial printers etc.), so we can provide your device prototypes quickly and inexpensively. We enjoy industrial design projects because they involve mathematics (NURBS, strength of materials etc.), and math is our passion.

We like challenges too, by the way. Consequently, our design concepts have won some of the most prestigious awards.

Microcontrollers programming

One of our services is the provision of robotic microprocessor-based systems.

We don’t use templates – we can provide original work. We create microprocessor systems following our clients’ specific requirements. We offer services for various types of microprocessors. There are two main device elements involved in such projects – microcontrollers for data processing, and sensors for data collection. We can work with sensors of all kinds – for instance, there may be multiple, different sensors in a single robot. We can connect modules up with feedback systems such as GSM transmitters and Wi-Fi modules, or we can set up synchronization with cloud resources such as M2X.

If necessary, our robotic systems can be equipped with movement logic specific to a particular medium or environment (such as movement on the ground, or in the air or water). We can provide external housing and details which can be modeled and printed via 3D printers. Custom work is modelled to satisfy specific housing design requirements for appearance, aerodynamics, or if the main parts of the robot dictate a complex mechanical design.

We can be contracted to create various deliverables:

Prototypes. A copy of a finished device which can complete the tasks;

Software for the device with instructions on integration with firmware;

Digital files for external housing to provide to a factory or to be printed on a 3D printer;

File for the PCB layout (Gerber or equivalent).

Hosting & system administration

Every website, every mobile app, an every online system must be based somewhere. To choose the final place is not so simple. We must take into account the location of the intended audience, the number of users, and the amount of data involved. Our technical experts are competent enough to consider and choose a server with both the best pricing and features. We’ll handle complete configuration of software and fine-tuning of server equipment according to the project requirements. We are experienced with load-balancing systems and big data and can satisfy the needs of enterprise clients as well as clients with smaller-scale projects.

In addition to providing end-to-end web-applications, we can solve any other system administration problems you may have:

You don’t want your competitors to access your data? OK, security is our favorite job! We’ll make things prohibitively difficult for hackers and social engineers so that malicious people will stay out of your system.

Are you afraid of losing something important? This is prudent. We’ll configure backup systems on a separate server or via Amazon storage.

You need to connect files with online storage? Or maybe you want corporate email with spam protection? We’ll choose the open-source solution focusing on your needs.

Leave the difficult technical system administration details up to us so that you can focus on developing your business!